Global Terrorism: a Victim’s Right to Compensation in Kenya
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to make a case for the victims of terrorism to be compensated by
the State. Justice is the constant and perpetual disposition to render every man his due as was
held in Re James Henry Borden, Jr v State (20
07). Consequently, access to a fair and just legal system is a fundamental human right which no
person should be denied. In view of the foregoing, it is worth noting that global terrorism is a
phenomenon that usually affects innocent citizens whereas terrorism may target to damage both
the State and her security apparatus. Therefore, this study was conducted in Kenya and was
chosen purposively due to the fact that it has huge numbers of terrorism victims seeking
compensation. Hence, the specific objective of this study was to examine Kenya‟s legal
framework providing for compensation for victims of terrorism, assess if victims of terrorism are
duly recognized by the State for compensation purposes and to make recommendations for the
enactment of a law providing for compensation. The Natural law theory was used in this study
fairly widely so as to provide a means of determining and supporting the progress in advancing
the compensation argument for victims of terrorism. This study employed descriptive research
design and specifically used the library based design which was quite appropriate for this study
since it sought to analyze factors associated with certain occurrences, outcomes or types of
behaviour. In conclusion, this study discerned that the Compensation Fund established by the
Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2012 is yet to be operationalised and therefore recommends that
there be established a Compensation Scheme and an operationalised Compensation Fund for
victims of terrorism; thereby creating the need to enact a law providing for the eligibility criteria
for victims of terrorism to guarantee them compensation.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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